I'm the Chief Product Officer of Forbes Media. It's been a long journey: The New York Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, a little tabloid TV, AOL -- and I certainly don't want to forget TMZ. I lived through a newspaper strike (sounds quaint, right?), the New York City Black Out in '77, and my bout with the Cabbage Patch Dolls. I was the founder and CEO of True/Slant, which FORBES invested in and acquired four years ago. I got hooked on the News business as the student editor of The Daily Iowan during the days of Vietnam, Watergate and Roe v. Wade. I can quote all the best lines from "All the President's Men," and I still think Howard Beale did it better than all the real-life pretenders who followed him. I owe so much to James Bellows -- a truly gifted editor, an extraordinary human being and a mentor who was always there for me.

Forbes Update: 7 Reasons Why I Believe Clarity Is the New "Cool"

I’ve always liked clarity, particularly in my professional life and in the media I consume. I first came to Forbes in the mid-1990′s. I completely understood the brand and its voice. Then I left for AOL as the millennium turned. It was obvious the news cycle was getting faster and digital was the place to be. After that, I founded a start-up. I had a clear idea — well, I hoped I did — for a new way to produce news. A year ago, I sold that company to Forbes, one of my investors. In rejoining a trusted brand and people I trust, I saw a direct path for the True/Slant team to take its ideas to a bigger stage.

It’s worked out great at Forbes. Why? Lots of reasons, especially this one: the clarity and strength of the Forbes mission. Our journalism is rooted in the conviction that success results from free enterprise, the entrepreneurial spirit, smart investing — and living a life beyond the mere accumulation of dollars. That message gave tremendous focus to our task of dramatically re-imagining our products and culture.

The media landscape is packed with grand old brands, many fighting to re-invent their identity. Some are chasing bright, shiny objects (new technology tricks abound). Some are trying to mimic a competitor’s ideas (“it’s working for them, let’s make it work for us, too”). Still others are “Cool Chasers” (the media is stuffed with party goers fawning over the sexy new “voice” of the Web or the It designer).

Everybody wants some cool (hey, I’d love to be a little like Miles Davis or Keith Richards). Actually, I think the Forbes message is kind of cool. As the world puts ever more hope and faith in the spunk and nimbleness of entrepreneurial dreamers, Forbes is backing them all the way, just as it always has.

A few Sundays back, I was talking with Tom Post, a friend and a managing editor at Forbes whom I’ve worked with frequently as our careers intersected these past 20 years. “Start with clarity, come up with cool,” he said. “If you don’t, you end up with new but incoherent.”

Our editors have been deeply involved in a few new story-telling and reporting experiments. With Clayton Christensen, it was a multi-participant oral history in print, transformed into a multi-part video interview with the Harvard professor. With Lynn Tilton, the brash and attention-seeking private equity CEO, it was a novel Web-to-print cycle that generated a 360-degree story; with a magazine feature called The Forbes.com Conversation, we’re moving editor-contributor-user dialog from digital to print.

“We’re not just throwing something new out there for the sake of novelty,” Tom said. “We’re finding new forms to tell tales that suit the material we get.”

So, a year of hard work behind us, here are seven points of clarity (with results and some stats) that drove our team.

1) Embrace The Content Continuum

At the core of social media, everyone is publishing and sharing content to form deeper relationships with people they know or to connect with those they would like to know. For Forbes, “everyone” means the three voices of the media business: journalists, the audience and marketers. We’re giving members of each group the opportunity to publish — or certainly to openly participate and commingle — in a credible business news environment. To that end, we’re supplementing our full-time staff of reporters with a community of qualified contributors (journalists, authors, academics and topic experts), with each building an audience around their name and knowledge. For readers and users, we’ve placed their comments into the natural flow of our Web site and magazine. We’ve enabled marketers to say what’s on their minds, too. Our AdVoice program gives them the same tools as journalists to publish content on Forbes.com and the opportunity to do the same in print, in each case always clearly identified and labeled. The ultimate goal: to build a content engine for a new era that feeds our digital and print products, and to extend the Forbes brand to those across The Content Continuum who want to engage with each other, share content or speak their mind.

How has that played out one year later? Below is the first and current iteration of an individually branded post page for staff members and contributors, originally developed by True/Slant (clicking on the images will enlarge them or send you to a live page on Forbes.com). It introduces the notion of activity streams, which have since been deployed throughout Forbes.com (here’s an early look at the next version of the post page).

Below (left) is an Active Conversation in our magazine — staffers, contributors and the audience engaging with each other. Features in the magazine like this begin their life on Forbes.com as an Active Conversation (right) dynamically flowing through a channel stream.

Below (left) is a digital AdVoice page, which launched following the introduction of AdVoice in print (right) last November.

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I like Forbes for its up front and up to the minute reporting all on a wide variety of subjects. It hinges on business as a core, (excellent), and dives into articles with depth and personal opinions,(perfect). My personal preference given to cutting edge articles both in technology and the internet. Thank you Forbes for this insight.

I used to be a Forbes subscriber. Times, though, have changed. While I still browse Forbes from time to time, there doesn’t seem to be any compelling reason to return as a subscriber. (Disclaimer, I do subscribe to The Economist and other digital media, so I am not merely looking for a free lunch.) The quality of the material available is no better than that available on most blogs, and in truth I see Forbes at this moment as nothing more than a blog post with a reputation based on past achievements. After years of experience with social networking, I don’t think the push into the (already gone) next big thing is going to change my views. I agree that content is important, but it is content that Forbes is actually failing to deliver. I don’t claim to have all the answers, and I realize the difficulty of adapting to the new age, but Forbes needs to refocus and deliver more value if it does not wish to become a relic of the print age.

Thx for your perspective and comments. I’m sorry you feel that way. Perhaps you can find the time to give us more of a chance. Many others seem to be finding the value we offer. As i mentioned in previous post, our magazine subscriber renewals are rising… our direct mail response rates are up… and our sell-through rates on the newsstand are higher. Also, more and more users are finding their way to Forbes.com from a variety of sources. That’s all great, but we also know we can do better. And that’s exactly what we plan to do as the months unfold.

Have been following Forbes since my days in business school. Forbes conferences are wonderful; the philosophy is an example of true American spirit. Forbes needs to develop more of a “TV” presence. Forbes on Fox is great, however; we need more. Bloomberg has done a tremendous job in its tv presence and is leaving CNBC in the wake. Forbes has some of the best research and journalism; I am not convinced it is reaching it full potential in sharing the high quality product that Forbes produces.

It’s certainly one of our goals in the year ahead to do just that. As we continue to rebuild and develop new products (tablet offerings and video, in particular), we’ll be working to extend our brand to all those who want to be part of the Forbes experience. Please let us know how we’re doing.